The night was redolent of perfume. The gardens—the wonderful Japanese gardens where all sense of distance is lost and one wanders through miles of woodland, climbs mountains, and crosses lakes, all in the space of a few yards—stretched around him, limitless and mysterious. No moon shone, but the planets globed themselves in the star-dusted heavens and cast a pale radiance over meadow and wood. A soft night wind, warm and caressing, whispered of the age-old mystery of the east. From far away rose the murmur of the city stirring in its invisible homes. The night birds called from the bushes.
Insensibly the calm stole on Topham’s senses, and his whirling thoughts composed themselves. The Countess had reached Tokio before him; from what Stites said she had been there for several weeks at least; most likely she had left Berlin almost as soon as he had, and had come by way of Russia and Port Arthur.
Why was she there? Had she come because of him or for some reason of her own? Had she known that he was under orders for Tokio before she met him in Berlin and could her kindness have concealed some plan to use him—him a naval officer in the United States service? Or was she really ignorant that he was bound for the east. He could not remember having told her, and she might very well not have known his destination—might have understood him to be permanently attached to the Nevada. Remembering what she had said of a task that she was working out, he could not but think that her presence in Japan had to do with that task.
If she were on an errand of her own, what was it? He remembered that Rutile had believed that the Kaiser would set conditions for the restoration of the lost duchy; probably the countess was trying to fulfill these conditions.
But what were the Kaiser’s conditions. Shrink as he might from questioning the acts of the woman he loved, he could not forget the role that Stites had ascribed to her. Putting beside this her own assertions that association with her spelled peril to his honor the obvious explanation was that she was engaged in some proceeding inimical to his country—some conspiracy that it was his duty as an officer of the United States to discover and to crush.
He set himself to studying out the possible objects of a possible conspiracy. Clearly it involved Japan. But how? The obvious explanation was that it had to do with trade—the open door—Manchuria—China; but somehow Topham doubted whether the obvious explanation were the true one. He remembered Stites’s assertion that Japan was preparing for war with the United States. But what had Germany to do in such a war, even if it should be contemplated? What could she possibly gain that would balance even the loss that would result from the disturbance of trade? The Kaiser had been angry when the United States seized the Philippines years before, but having held his wrath then, how could he hope to profit by it now? If Japan got the better of the struggle, the spoils would go to her and not to Germany. On its face, a Japanese-German war conspiracy against the United States was preposterous.
Yet he could not doubt that Germany was in some way for some reason involved. But how? But how? Mortified self pride played no part in Topham’s reflections. Although the Countess had “cut” him in the dining-room, decidedly, unmistakably, the fact had almost ceased to trouble him. She might have very good reasons for not desiring to seem to know him at that moment; he was content to wait for an explanation. Besides, he had more important things to think about.
A clatter of clogs on the stones of the terrace and a rustling of garments aroused him and he looked around to find a Japanese maid bowing profoundly in the starlight just behind his right shoulder.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, startled. “What want?”
The girl closed her fan with a clash just as he had seen her sisters do it many a time on the stage in America.